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The Historic Landscape of the Forest of Bowland and the Lune Valley

• Forest of Bowland
  Forest of Bowland

• Lune Valley
  Lune Valley

The Project

In 2001 Lancashire County Council and English Heritage started a three-year project about the historic landscape. This was part of a Europe-wide initiative called the European Pathways to the Cultural Landscape (EPCL), which includes twelve projects from ten countries. A joint European project links these together, allowing each to learn from the others by exchanging information and ideas about landscape management and promotion.

The English project focused on the Forest of Bowland and the Lune Valley in northeast Lancashire. The historic dimension of this culturally distinctive area has been largely overlooked in the past and yet is coming under increasing pressure for change, not least from the new accesses granted under the CROW act.

The project was completed in 2004.

Map showing the Survey Area
© Crown Copyright. All rights reserved
Lancashire County Council OS Licence No.100023320 2003

What is the Historic Landscape?

One of the main aims of the project was to improve our understanding of the historic landscape of the Forest of Bowland and the Lune Valley; this involved looking beyond the individual historic buildings and archaeological sites that had preoccupied us in the past.

The landscape as we know it today is the product of hundreds if not thousands of `years of human activity, and every house, barn, field boundary, footpath, and earthwork has its own story to tell of how this has developed over time.

Throughout the Forest of Bowland and the Lune Valley a number of historic landscape character types have been identified, as the map below shows, and each of these has its own particular characteristics that distinguish it from the rest. For example, the upland moor is largely defined by unenclosed land, it is an area rich in prehistoric remains and historically was important for hunting and grazing.

In contrast ancient enclosure (land enclosed before AD1600) tends to occur in areas of lowland or valley pasture and is defined by a patchwork of irregular-shaped fields, an intricate network of footpaths and roads interspersed by towns, farms, hamlets and villages. This has the sense of a more tamed landscape than the upland moor, which despite its careful land management gives the impression of being wild and isolated.

Click on Map to enlarge( 67kb)

Map and Photographs of Broad Historic Landscape Character Types
The Upland Moor in Over Wyresdale     Ancient Enclosure in the Hodder Valley

By understanding the historic character of the landscape we can begin to recognise its distinctiveness and historical diversity, which is essential for its sustainable management.

This information has a number of potential uses. For example, information about the historic landscape can be used to advise agri-environment schemes, village design statements, planning applications, woodland planting and hedgerow boundary proposals. The volume 'Using Historic Landscape Characterisation' explores some of these. This report can be downloaded from (External) English Heritage's website .

The Human Landscape

An important part of the project involved talking to people who live, work and visit this area about their thoughts and opinions of the historic landscape. For example, should the historic character of the landscape be maintained and how can we direct scarce resources to the areas of greatest need?

A series of public meetings took place during 2002/3, where we spoke to as many people as possible.

Public consultation confirmed that the landscape of Bowland and the Lune Valley was valued both by those who live and work there and by those who come and visit. It was clear, however, that few people were directly aware of how today's landscape has evolved over time and that it retains features reflecting thousands of years of direct and indirect management by humans. Many had a perception of the landscape as rather static, yet when this was discussed in more detail could give examples of the kind of changes that have occured in their lifetime and which have altered the present landscape. Again, many people initially expressed the view that archaeological sites were isolated features, sitting 'on' rather than 'in' the landscape. When this was considered further they saw how individual 'sites' were simply facets of the mosaic of features that together form the landscape, and that in many cases no real boundaries could be drawn between sites and their setting.

To try and raise public awareness of the dynamic nature of the historic landscape, a series of reconstruction paintings were commissioned from the artist John Hodgson. Together they reconstruct how the Bleasdale area would have looked at six particular points in time. They are interpretations based upon detailed archaeological and environmental data and are as close as possible to how we understand the landscape to have been shaped over time.

These images are reproduced by permission of the artist, who retains the copyright, although he has given permission for them to be reproduced on this site and as a series of postcards. Sets of the postcards can be obtained, free of charge, from the County Archaeology Service .

Joint Funded By

Logo - Culture 2000

Logo - Lancashire County Council

Logo - European Pathways to Cultural Landscapes

Logo: English Heritage

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